where did may go?!

wow. is may over already? whew. i am so glad! anytime i went to write down one more thing on my calendar for may, i longingly flipped the page over to gaze upon the emptiness of june. at that point, the only events on my calendar for june were nursery duty, father's day, and my birthday. it was going to be a nice, quiet month once we got there. i could make it... i could make it. even memorial day weekend was supposed to be an empty one, yet we ended up taking a (wonderful) last-minute day trip to see family. may just couldn't go out on a quiet note, could it?!

as busy as may has been, it has been a great month.

remember mother's day? yeah, it's been awhile, i know. we had a nice quiet lunch at a beachside restaurant with my mom. 5 seconds after i half-jokingly said, "i'm gonna sit at the other end of the table from the highchair for mother's day", amelia scaled the highchair and flipped backwards onto the tile floor. high ceiling+tile floor+hurt child= very very loud screaming. but after a few minutes and several packets of captain's wafer crackers, she was ok. before lunch, we attempted some precious, mother-child pictures. thanks to God's amazing creations of the wind and the sun, this was about the best we got.


we went back inside before the kids burst with excitement about my gift. ethan found an idea in an arts and crafts book earlier this year, and he'd bookmarked the page with great anticipation for mother's day. my mom helped the kids with their little project... and when they woke up mother's day morning, they were giddy. it was so so cute. here they are watching me open my present.


their gift was a little box with paper folded accordion-style. the kids decorated the sides of the box.... caroline's art was her signature rainbow-colored designs, while ethan's work was a couple of quickly drawn pencil depictions of the two of us. on the paper, ethan had written, "happy mother's day" and their names. it was so simple and so small... yet so big and important to them! which made it the perfect mother's day gift.


brian bought some beautiful lilies for mother's day, and they found a perfect home in front of my kitchen windows. do you love my vase?! nope, i haven't unpacked that box yet!!


may also marked the end of soccer season. which marks the return of our evenings and saturdays! yyyaaaaaaaaaaay! the kids had fun this season, and i hope to get some pictures on here soon of the season. hope you like orange. it's a lot of orange.

and since the summer is so wonderfully uneventful (mostly, anyway), we may just get this house in order. i can't believe i have hardly taken any pictures of the "during". i documented the "before", and i look forward to getting to the "after", Lord-willing! but we are most definitely living in the "during" at the moment. i won't lie... there were days those first couple of weeks when i felt like i was moving backwards in terms of progress! unpacking a house + a two-year-old roaming do not make for a pretty combination. but God is good, and i'm discovering missing things in random boxes on a daily basis. it only took us a few weeks to find those bunk bed bolts!

i need to snap some pictures of the "during". but for now, i will leave you with one shot of my kitchen windows. not the prettiest windows, but these bad boys let in some nice natural light! and they overlook a beautiful yard next door and the quiet tree-lined alley. it is my favorite view of all.


this kitchen needs some work, but i am happy to report that we no longer have the dorm fridge sitting on our counter! we are loving our new fridge... and i wish i could say the same for that vintage dishwasher!!

despite the full calendar this past month, we were still able to squeeze in some "slow" family times... like walks and bike rides around our new neighborhood. loving, loving, loving it. here are the kids as we were ready to go to our friend natalie's baseball game just down the street.


things with the short sale seem to be progressing. yesterday, the bank requested a copy of our escrow check ASAP, so that was a really good sign that things are moving right along. with every box that i unpack, i am praising God for our daily bread... and i'm praying that He will continue to guide us and keep us until we know whether this house will truly be ours. getting settled without getting attached is a real challenge. but by His grace and with His strength, we are taking it one month at a time! and this month looks to be a great one. :)

a quick easter recap...

easter came and went this year in one big blur. resurrection sunday was one day before moving day, so we did not spend Holy Week exactly how i would have liked. we did talk a lot about the significance of easter... but then again, Jesus dying for our sins is a year-round discussion! we did make it to the passion play. and Jesus ascended to the same incredibly awesome worship song as last year. brian and i spent friday and saturday prior to resurrection sunday cleaning out our new house, so i just was not on the ball this year. ethan had no new pants (translate: the cuffs were at his ankles) and his hair was long overdue for a haircut. but i knew he could sing "Christ the Lord is risen today" with a shaggy head in his highwaters... and that's exactly what he did! thankfully, i'd bought caroline's dress at a consignment store last year, and amelia is always the proud hand-me-downee from caroline's dresses (which were hand-me-downs or consignment to begin with!). i usually take a picture of their easter clothes all pressed and hung up the night before... but did i mention we were moving!? so this is as good as i could do this year:


the clothes on the kids. and a whole bunch of boxes. 'cause we were moving. and every room pretty much looked like that.

so when we got to church, i tried to get a shot of the kids outside. i thought i could get a better one than this, but our friends pulled up, and my kids were totally distracted by their kids. (we got them back later when our car alarm went off while they were doing their pics right in front of our van!) this was definitely not the year for perfect easter pictures, but hey- we're showcasing real life here at tenlittletoes. :) (and i'm sooooo glad i carefully ironed caroline's dress only to have it crumpled up by the car seat.)


after a wonderful worship service, we headed over to jeff and kristie's for a delicious steak lunch. we bribed the kids with jellybeans in an attempt to get some pictures before they went crazy. apparently jellybeans do not motivate amelia....


kristie and i melted when the girls got together for these sweet cousin pictures. they were loving the talking eggs from nana!



and here's a close-up of each kiddo in their easter duds...

ethan is looking way too grown-up these days.


i love caroline's lil' finger sticking out!


amelia even kept her bow in her hair. i guess that makes up for our family picture.


these sisters are growing closer and closer every day. i love hearing caroline include amelia in her play. and amelia pretty much does whatever caroline does. amelia really does love her sister... despite her expression in this precious picture!


easter sunday was a few weeks ago now, but we continue to praise God for The Lamb Who was and is and is to come!

saying good-bye

dear first house,

thank you for the last seven years. we sure did cram a lot of firsts, a lot of memories, and a whole lot of stuff into your 1170 square feet. i moved in as an engaged girl... you were such a quiet house when it was just me! a couple of months later, brian and i got married, and he moved all his stuff into your garage. (a joke between me and brian-- he always said i made him put everything out there!) and less than 5 years later, we'd brought three sweet babies home through your front door.


amelia coming home from the hospital- january 2009
your quiet days were history! the pitter patter of little feet turned into the stampede of toddlers racing down the hallway or zooming matchbox cars from the living room into the kitchen.


your days with us were full of joyful noises.... laughter as ethan and caroline were tickled silly by daddy.... music as the children danced day after day in the living room... clanging of pots and pans as they all cooked up lots of meals and mischief in their play kitchen... and squeals as daddy would walk in the door each evening.

when we bought you, you were covered with white walls and old brown shag carpet. your front yard boasted two big beautiful oak trees and immaculate green grass.


june 2004
we painted your walls, replaced your floors, and killed your grass. but your trees were still beautiful! in the last seven years, those freshly painted walls have been written on and banged into.... that new carpet has been peed on, pooped on, and thrown up on... and those nice wood floors have taken the punishment of die cast airplane wings over and over and over. just a few days before closing, your living room wall met with a wooden cupcake, and the result was a nice chunk of wall on the floor. you were definitely lived in.


on any given day in your living room
i really imagined that we would stay with you forever... perhaps closing in the garage and adding on. but those little feet that once pitter-pattered down the hallway were now on the pedals of a bike. and you, our dear sweet first house, just have too many cars zooming past you every hour. our children had been content to play and ride in your driveway, but they will soon be old enough to venture out... riding down the street on their own, knowing how far they can go and what will happen to them if they go any further. we loved you, little house on the busy street... but i want my kids to venture out. and your street just wouldn't let them.

so we decided to get you ready to sell. let me rephrase that... i decided that we needed to sell you. i am a microwave. i pop an idea in... hit express cook... and a minute later-- you've got dinner. brian is a crockpot. you put a nice idea in there on low, and it cooks s-l-o-w-l-y. you may get a tender, juicy roast in the end, but you've gotta wait for it. (meanwhile, i'm snacking on my rubbery-microwave-cooked chicken nuggets.) so it was november 1, and i up and declared that we needed to move to a quieter neighborhood. (and i won't lie.... i wanted a little more square footage.) i was ready to rock-n-roll by the end of the week, and my dear mr. crockpot just needed to sit on low. for a couple of months. never mind there was the matter of caroline's birthday, homeschooling, thanksgiving, disney, christmas, the throw-ups, amelia's birthday and um, life. that is all beside the point. oh, yes, and then there was the list.

we were not finished making you our house, you see. the kitchen was smack in the middle of its update, and there was a long list of "should-do's" that quickly turned into "must-do's". we hadn't made time in seven years to finish these projects.... how would we get them done in time to list our house before the microwave exploded?! with the help of our friend david (or "misty", as caroline affectionately and randomly named him!), that's how. he tackled all of our projects, and before we knew it, our list looked like this


and my kitchen cabinets finally looked like this.


the best part is that david let us pay him in coffee and chick-fil-a! (just kidding!) :) seriously though.... david does great work if you need anything done at your house! i can hook you up!!

by mid-february, our realtor was calling weekly to see if we were ready to list yet. no, i said. but we're almost there. while misty was painting and fixing and drilling (all the while letting ethan help him and playing audience to the girls' latest performances), we were cleaning out and tidying up. closets got emptier, windows got cleaner. blinds got dusted (there's a first time for everything.). and this is when i started saying good-bye to you. i could take many things with me... the baby books, the blankets, the little clothes. but i could not take this with me....


can you tell what this is? it's a pair of grubby, dirty footprints on the wall in ethan and caroline's bedroom. i found it the day that we moved ethan's crib out of his room... and i couldn't bear to clean it off. it stayed there for the last 4 years, and i just about couldn't clean it off the wall a couple of months ago. but i got it together, snapped a picture, and off came the footprint. that was my first and hardest good-bye to you, dear house.

we finally put you up for sale on march 13. we didn't know how long it would take for someone to fall in love with you like we did.... i waffled back and forth between, "this house is adorable! it will sell in no time!" and "the market is horrible! it won't sell...ever!" but at the end of the day, we trusted in God's perfect timing, and we knew that if we were meant to move on from you, that God would bring us a buyer. once our house was on the market, i was so busy making sure everything was in tip-top shape every time we left the house that there was really very little time for me to feel sad about selling you. you probably really enjoyed that time on the market. you shined and you smelled good! there were no dirty clothes lying about, no toys strewn all over the place. the dishes were either in the dishwasher or the cabinets. and the kitchen floor was the cleanest it had ever been. i'll tell you a little secret, house.... i hated the stress of keeping everything picture perfect, but i loved coming home to you looking so good. :)


by the grace of God, we had an offer in 9 short days. it would take 5 more days to come to an agreement on the selling price, but suddenly, selling you was a reality, little house! i wanted to relish the last month with you, sweet first house. i wanted to spend evenings with my husband on the gazebo swing where he proposed. i wanted to take one more video of the kids singing and dancing. i wanted to have our precious neighbor, mrs. bonnie, over for dinner. i wanted to sit in each room, telling the kids stories of when they were babies and things they did in that very spot. but the last month was a busy one, full of organizing and packing and shopping for our next home. (and soccer every single saturday!) i did not do any of those things i wanted to do and before we knew it, it was moving day!



our small group and family helped us move the majority of our belongings a couple of mondays ago, and then brian and i spent the next few nights gathering the last little things. we even remembered the baby clothes in the attic. it was strange to walk through your front door those last few evenings, knowing i was now calling another house "home". my last hour with you, dear first house, was just like my first. alone. quiet. cleaning the kitchen. when i finished, i jotted a little note to our buyer...


then i went back and forth from room to room, almost lost in the emptiness, saying goodbye. i surprised myself by not crying then (though i am now, as i write this). you were still a house, our house for a few more days. but without our familiar things, without a trace of my husband and my children... you were no longer our home. your walls themselves are not precious. they are just walls. it is the hands that touched them and the feet that dirtied them that are so very precious to me. so saying good-bye to you tugged tightly on my heartstrings, but it was not nearly as hard as i thought it would be.

it has been 3 days since we handed our keys to a young girl, a year out of college. i know she will take good care of you. she will give you some new paint, more wood floors, and you may even get your grass back before too long. i know one thing is for sure: she won't be hurling wooden cupcakes at your walls! you were a wonderful first house for us, and i'm excited that you are her first house, too.

don't worry, little house. we won't be strangers. we drive past your road several times a week, and we'll swing by often just to see you and say hi. you may not see us since we'll just be one of hundreds of cars racing down that street, so i'll be sure to honk. you were good to us, little first house. enjoy the peace and quiet. you've earned it.

love, emily

packing like crazy people

guess what?! we're not homeless! praise the Lord, we are able to rent the short-sale house until we find out if our offer on the house is approved by the bank. yes, i know. if it's not approved, we will have. to. move. again. but ya know what? if we'd rented somewhere else, and the sale is approved, we'd have to move again anyway. so we are taking it one month at a time, praising God for a roof over our heads. we were seeking out rentals however we could, but God closed door after door. and then... we realized that He left this door wide open. so we are walking through this door with the peace that He has provided and He will continue to do so.

here's what it's looked like at our house lately...


i thought it was safe to let the girls help me pack towels! and now as i am about to pack my dishes tonite, i'm wishing that box of towels weren't in this pile somewhere....


i may go searching for that box tomorrow if i run out of packing material. and i must say that amelia's poor little room smells so strongly of cardboard boxes right now. you know that smell?!? i am actually starting to be concerned that it is not good for her to be breathing it! (has anyone done any research of toxins in cardboard?!?!?)

tomorrow, i am heading over to the new house to spend the day cleaning out and cleaning up! i cannot wait! my sweet sister-in-law is having the kids over for the day, and i hope to get so much done. brian will join me after lunch to rip up some carpet and to help me trash the leftovers from an estate sale. when i say leftovers, i mean junk. there are some functional storage pieces and whatnots that i'm keeping... they are far from antiques, but they will surely be great for shelf space!

once i get the place de-junked, i will post some pictures on here. a clean palate. i can't wait. and then we move our junk in. :) we have our list of ideas of what we want to do to this house, but since we are just renting for now, we are making a concerted effort to put as little as possible into the house until the sale is approved and the house is officially ours.

so this weekend is clean-up, and monday night is moving night! it's a busy busy weekend!

the difference a month makes

exactly one month ago, our house was put on the market.

one week later, we had an offer! (thank you, God!)

another week later, we'd finally agreed on a selling price with the buyer. (nothing short of a miracle.)

and now, here we are...two and a half weeks from handing over the keys to our first home.


so. it's been a busy month to say the very least. lots of praying and house-hunting and praying and number crunching and praying. we've found a house that we absolutely love. it's charming, it's spacious, it's in a beautiful neighborhood... and it's a short sale. so we are living the saying "hurry up and wait". i expected the house-selling to be the part that would take awhile. boy was i wrong. we've jumped through several of the hurdles involved with selling, and now we are so close to our new house that i can just taste it. i can picture my dishes in the cabinets (that um, need to be painted. yeah.) and my food in the pantry (cue hallelujah chorus). i can picture my grandmother's dining room table next to the fireplace with room to stretch. and i can picture my children grinning from ear to ear as they ride their bikes up and down the quiet street. i can also picture us with our new list of projects to make this house our home. :) don't worry. we are not going to touch the kitchen cabinets for a long, long while.

if i had the phone number of the short sale case manager, you betcha i'd be calling him every week to see where he thought my couch should go or to ask what color he would paint the bathrooms. by week 4, surely he'd stamp "approved" on that paperwork, don't ya think?! we have no idea how long this short sale process will take, or even if it will be approved at all. we are praying for patience and God's guidance through these unchartered waters... and praise the Lord our realtor is awesome. to quote her, she is a bulldog, and she is not letting go of this bone. :)

we are still working on where we will live as of april 29. i ask for your prayers with that as well. i know God will provide. my heart knows this. but my head freaked out just a little bit this afternoon. i've been the one telling brian, "we will NOT be homeless!"....and then about 2pm today, after several unsuccessful phone calls, i called him, crying, "we're going to be homeless!" God will provide. God will provide. God will provide.

in the meantime, we have lots of boxes to pack. i have lots of memories to go through. we'll start with this one...


7 years ago, april 10, 2004, brian proposed to me in the gazebo in our future backyard. and for the last seven years, God has blessed us in this little house. He truly has blessed us. i hope that in the next two weeks, in the midst of wading through boxes and packing paper, i can take time to enjoy our last little bit of time in our first house. more reminiscing to come...